We’re seeing the “new geopolitics” of oil. Exhbit A: China’s growing clout, exemplified by the deals it signed with Brazil that the U.S. just can’t match (but which it could benefit from all the same), in the WSJ. Will Cuba and its potentially big oil reserves come into the picture, in the WaPo.

A new study on Candian oil sands says the “well-to-wheel” emissions aren’t really that terrible, just 5% to 15% more than using regular oil, in the NYT.

Europe took a big step toward kickstarting the Nabucco natural-gas pipeline project with an $8 billion deal to develop gas in northern Iraq, reports the WSJ. That comes just after Russia and Italy announced closer cooperation on a rival gas pipeline meant to keep Gazprom in the catbird seat, in the FT. Steve Levine looks at very different takes on Gazprom’s true energy muscle.

Some folks appear to have actually read the 932-page climate bill over the weekend. Good for them. The NYT explains why a “market-based” solution beats out a carbon tax any day: “Cap and trade, by contrast, is almost perfectly designed for the buying and selling of political support through the granting of valuable emissions permits to favor specific industries and even specific Congressional district.”

Even carbon-tax proponent Al Gore is behind the Waxman-Markey bill, Grist notes, and the former veep is rallying his not inconsiderable grassroots suppport. Paul Krugman grits his teeth but falls in line, too: “I’m with Mr. Gore. The legislation now on the table isn’t the bill we’d ideally want, but it’s the bill we can get — and it’s vastly better than no bill at all.”